This post is simply to thank all of you that are on my wait list for being so patient and to those adopters that make Our Crazy Rat Adventure family so full of smiles, laughter and fond memories. It is amazing how the ratties seem to simply fit right into their human's heart like they were meant to be!

I hear the question often, "How long is your wait list?" I wish I had a set answer for each person asking. ​I know from experience that waiting for a new rattie is hard. Recently, I adopted off my wait list to someone that was waiting for two years for a specific type. Two years! You know what? Those two girls were MEANT to be hers! The instant bond was beautiful. One falling asleep nestled in the crux of her arm while the other played in her hair. Those moments of watching them bond makes the ups and downs of breeding ratties all worth it. As someone waiting, please remember, each litter is carefully planned. Sometimes from the time the female is just 6 weeks old, I already have a male planned and waiting those next 5 months for her. Alternately, I may have the perfect male picked out at 8 weeks but need to wait until he is much older (7-15 months old) to pick his future mate. Unfortunately, the plans can change, the pairings may not take. Of course we all know that the number delivered varies with each litter. That being said, I have also gotten people on the list that have only had to wait a week because they didn't have specifics on wants, simply wanted a pair of our sweet tempered OCRA ratties. The right timing and the right babies are going to be available when it is the right fit. Do not get discouraged, that is what makes it a never ending crazy adventure! In just a few more weeks. I will be contacting a couple of you on the wait list that will be able to pick from the 2018 Summer Berry Beautiful Litter boys. Their eyes are opening and soon their sweet personalities will start to shine! We are pairing our next girl this week with lil pipsqueaks due the middle/end of August they will be our 2018 Summer Just Add Water Litter

I am looking forward to meeting each and every one of you on the wait list. I cannot wait to introduce you to your new babies. Meeting new rat lovers and adding to Our Crazy Rat Adventure Family is such a joy. I am amazed how often when I contact a future adopter to tell them who is available for them and they tell me, 'THAT IS THE ONE I WAS HOPING FOR!!!' Simply that perfect fit, meant to be. In the past four years, it has happened so far close to 70 times (I just counted totals and it is over 125 pet ratties, 31 rescues and several breeders). Many have come back over the years to add more to their mischief, sometimes I have yet another perfect fit. However, since I do not like to breed on a LARGE scale I have also referred them to other breeders or rescues that I know will have new babies for them. By doing this I am simply extending the reach of our 'family'.

After adoption, I am warning all of you on the wait list, I expect updates! WHY? Well, not only does it help me track the health of my lines once they leave here, but all the pictures and texts I have received from previous adopters to update me on their ratties' shenanigans has kept me from getting discouraged when I had an elder rat that was ready to cross the rainbow bridge, or even when I woke up to find that a female delivered her babies but was not doing well and had to be rushed to the vet. Those happy texts and messages I receive even help me process the loss I know my other adopter must feel when I get the message that they just lost their rattie 1.5 months shy of their 3rd birthday. It is so hard sometimes. For being such wee little critters they sure do fill up a huge spot in our heart with their love for us. Thanks for letting me ramble on, and thank you for being so patient in waiting for the perfect fit...

Not to long ago I posted about the need to make sure you have a plan in case of emergencies for your pets. In these emergency situations no thought to proper quarantine is often given. The main plan is to make sure the animals have food, water and shelter. In the best world, proper quarantine is vital for the health and safety of our pets and the caregivers.

I recently had an adopter ask me if I knew of a person or place that could 'pet-sit' her ratties when they went on vacation. Several of my friends would be great options. However, those that love rats already have rodents and would need to quarantine the new guys for the short time they are in their home. I have done this for adopters but really hate the fact that I cannot luv on the ratties like the rest of my mischief since I need to shower/change clothes each time I visit them out in our quarantine or wait three hours to to come back into my house by running lots of errands 2x a day. Not realistic. When we do have rats in quarantine for 3 weeks, my dear husband usually checks on the ratties when he heads to work, making sure they have food, water and the temp is correct. I then go out before bed to let them run around on me giving luvs, check their food and water then head to bed after a shower - avoiding my own ratties nightly routine to keep everyone 'safe'. Not ideal but necessary when we come back from shows, or add new ratties to our mischief.

Since so many adopters have asked me if I know of anyone, I would love to be able to keep a list of people in my area that love ratties but do not have any rodents. If you are in Oregon or Washington and would like to be added to this list for a chance to love on ratties while others are on vacation please contact me either through the Facebook page or through the website. I can always remove your name if you get ratties or other rodents but it would be amazing if I had some names to share to help others in need of a vacation get away for their lil pipsqueaks.

[Disclaimer: You will have to fully vet any and all people that you will want to watch your ratties. I will simply provide you with names that are given to me. Please make sure you get references etc....]

We get most of our stuff at Winco Foods in their bulk section – except for the dog food, sunflower seeds, rolled barley and groats - all of which can be found at feed stores much cheaper.​January 2018: We have adjusted the mix recently to give our ratties a bit more block but to still keep the variety they love and taking out a few extras that were not benefiting them.

One of the difficult and often frustrating parts of breeding is that hopeful moment when the female gains a bit, then stops. Unfortunately, this has happened with our most recent pairings. I have updated a few of our albums but wanted you all to know that since the pairings we had did not take, we are mixing it up a bit and doing our next planned pairs. I was not planning on them until spring/summer but am so excited to work with these pairings and their offspring.

​As a smaller breeder I take my time focusing on improving our lines with around 4-6 litters a year. If you are a pre-approved adopter on our wait list, nothing has changed except the timing of our litters. I will contact you as soon as we have babies available for you. If for some reason the wait is too long, I encourage you to contact a local rescue and let me know if you would either like to be kept on the list for future ratties or be removed so I can let the pre-approved adopters after you know.

One of the sweet mama's of even sweeter babies available at the Small Animal Rescue Society in BC.

Did you know that a Mama rat can get pregnant again right after giving birth to her babies? If the male rat is not removed from the cage PRIOR to birth, the female will deliver another litter 3-4 weeks after her first one arrives. (this could mean 25+ babies for mama) This does not give her a chance to recoup from the first litter beginning to wean and means more babies will need to find a loving home, which is not always easy.

I often get emails from new rat owners telling us they just adopted from a pet store or from a 'breeder' where they got two rats but think one is the wrong sex. I can pretty much guarantee that the female is pregnant if she is over 6 weeks of age. This is not an ideal breeding age (females should really be closer to 4-6 months/300 grams to give them the optimum health and successful litters) No matter how much you want to have them enjoy each other's company male and female rats cannot play together. (unless the male is neutered or female spayed) When rats breed they only need a few seconds, yes seconds! I often encourage those with two babies different sexes to take one or the other sex back to where they got them and get one of the correct sex as a companion.

Of course sometimes we also hear that someone adopted two females (correct sex) but one or both are pregnant and deliver 1-3 weeks after joining the family. This is not something everyone is prepared to deal with after just adding new rats to the family. Most important all babies need to be sexed correctly, especially by 4-5 weeks of age. Though the males are not always able to, they sometimes can breed their mama/sisters by 5-6 weeks. If this happens the whole crazy cycle can start again!! It is not always easy to find good homes for 'the oops! litter' babies.

What happens when people can't find homes for the babies??? This is were many rescues have stepped up to help the new rat owners and those that have gotten overwhelmed with 'oops! litters' Right now a great rescue in British Columbia has a plethora of babies. A social worker brought in two mamas and their new babies the end of November 2017. Unfortunately, the mamas had already been bred again prior to joining Small Animal Rescue Society so they have BABIES!!! LOTS OF BABIES on the way! in need of good homes.

Because we have such amazing support in the rat community Best Friends Rodent Rescue in Washington is also helping in the efforts to get the SARS babies home. What a great way to start the new year - with an new furbaby or two! Contact them at sarsrats@gmail.com to see if they have a sweet baby or two to join your mischief.

If you are not close to British Columbia, don't be discouraged there are so many rescues out there with babies and lovable olders in need of furever homes.

If you are on social media or follow posts on Craigslist, you may have seen threats that are often posted.

'My boyfriend left, come take theses rats or I will release them!'

'My daughter passed away, can't take care of her rats, free to anyone, food or pet or I will release them in woods down the road.'​'Landlord found out I had rats, must get rid of them NOW! Will release them tomorrow if you don't pick up'

If you have rats and need help, contact your local humane society first! Often they will be able to take them or let you know of rodent rescues in your area. Facebook has been a great resource for rescues along with Craigslist.

I also encourage you to make an emergency plan for all of your animals. I recently had a family emergency that needed me to leave town for a week, with only a weeks notice. My 'to do' list was 2 pages long! And that didn't include all the kids needs! Not only do we all need to make a back up plan for our animals, if we should fall ill or have an accident. We also need to make a simple weekly 'to do' chart so others can step in for our animals without the animals experiencing too much stress in our absence. This list should include the vet's name and number, food that they eat, bedding they use and where you purchase it.

Something we do not like to think about but needs to be done.

With the New Year approaching it is also time to update your Rat Emergency Kit. Here is a link to ours

This video link has a lot of great information in regards to what happens after rats mate. I have mentioned several times in previous posts about the sperm plug being seen to confirm breeding. This short video was made by "Wild Sex" on Facebook . I love sharing information and this video does a great job!

Most likely not. If the baby has always been small, hitting all the milestones as it’s litter mates, such as pigment showing around same day and eyes opening, you most likely have a runt on your hands. Often a dwarf rat will not slow down in growth until around weeks 3 - 4 in an average litter. (It was recently brought to my attention by someone that had a smaller litter that their difference was more obvious much earlier.) Sometimes you won’t notice a runt until the first week passes. Sometimes there are more than one in a litter. Runts will often catch up to their litter mates by weeks 9-12. However, if you have a little one that is skinnier than it's litter mates, lagging, not hitting their milestones, you may have FTT (Failure to Thrive also known as 'ill thrift' by veterinarians.) They are often very skinny and weak; not able to absorb all the nutrients needed to meet those milestones. Most often FTT will not survive into adulthood. Either the mother will push them out of the nest, sensing something not right, or they will pass on their own before 2 weeks. There are exceptions, my 939 gram boy, CRUS Bennet, being one of them. He was FTT, ½ the size of his siblings and too weak to be able to push them off so he could nurse. If his breeder didn't make sure he latched on and supplemented him with extra formula he most likely would have never survived past 2 weeks. He was one of my biggest boys and lived to just shy of his 2nd birthday. ​As with CRUS Bennet (mentioned above), I have become known as 'The Collector of Runts'. I have a soft spot for the lil guy in a litter. This is simply as a pet lover, not a breeder. Wanting to keep runts or adopt runts from others, fills up the mischief rather quickly. This limits my space so I am not able to work with all the varieties I want. Often a breeder will have what they call a 'bucket list' of rats they would like to someday work with. My list of those that I would like to someday have would include: Harvel, Roan, Whiteside, & Rex. I also love a beautiful Self rat. (All one color). I am trying to get the pigment of my lines all the way down to their toes. There will sometimes be an odd recessive blaze, or variegated popping up, keeping the litters even more entertaining. The most recent marking surprise in a litter happened at the end of last year, in the 2016 Winter All Science Litter, appearing at 4 ½ weeks. OCRA Inertia was our very first Himalayan and OCRA Tesla ended up being a beautiful Burmese! Up until she showed up, I had never even seen a Burmese. WOW! I must say, my favorite look for sure. Currently we are working with Standard & Satin coats in Burmese, Himalayan, Siamese, Mink, Russian Blue, Agouti, Blue, Chocolate, Black and all of their dilutes. I also loved our pets that were Hairless and enjoy the Drex but do not want to work with those as a breeder. Hairless often have lactation issues that would mean doubling up on my breeding so I would need a foster mother for the babies. With my 2 Drex rats that I love as pets, I have found a lot of issues such as the eyelashes growing wrong and extra pory due to the irritation. The constant shedding from coarse broken hairs also drives me batty but they are worth it. I love them dearly.

​So back to the dwarf question mentioned above. Did you notice dwarf was not mentioned on my bucket list? Never in my wildest dreams, had I thought I would work with dwarf. This is a tough variety to work with. The babies are often the same size as standards so a dwarf mama could have difficulty birthing. For the female dwarf that do deliver, their litters are much smaller than the standard litters in number. Often 3-6 verses 8-15 with a full-size rat. Talking with other breeders, the best option would be to breed dwarf carriers or a dwarf male to a carrier female. Even then, you are not guaranteed dwarf when working with carriers. Why all this talk about dwarf? Well.... because of our Burmese, OCRA Tesla, in the 2016 litter, we wanted to pull more Burmese out to work with. To do that we bred her back to her father OCRA Galileo. Imagine my surprise when our 2017 Summer All Science Litter v2.0 hit 3.5 weeks and 3 boys (OCRA Tesla’s Coil, OCRA Electron and OCRA Luman) slowed down. I mean WAY DOWN in their growth compared to their siblings. First thought was FTT and I hit a bit of a panic. I began supplementing them with extra goodies hoping to get them back up to their siblings’ weight. All they ended up doing was getting round. As they hit 5.5 weeks old their weigh difference was ½ their siblings, 70-79 grams verses their siblings at 140-160 grams. They continued to grow and be VERY active. Now at 5 months they weigh 132-180 grams and their siblings are over 560 grams! The two that are heavier are VERY round still but in every way, look like dwarf – looking at their little bellies they are about 25-35 grams overweight. They all live with standard size males with no issues. Well, except for the Napoleon Syndrome they seem to be expressing (in fact one was renamed Napoleon by his adopter). It is amazing when you have a litter of 12 thinking you are just working with your standard line and you get a surprise. We have no idea where they came from, since I can track my lines back to 2010 with one other breeder, 2012 & 2013 with another. I may never know where the recessive dwarf came from but will have a lot of fun testing it out with another proven dwarf to see how this new line will develop. Here is a link to the album on fb so you can follow our dwarf adventure with OCRA Tesla and her next litter!

*Male and Female rats really differ in their weight after 6 weeks, for the graph I combined the averages of both. **​Dwarf weights are from breeders in the area: Little Diva's Rattery, Sith Rattery, The Breakfast Bunch Rattery, & Kobold Rattery ***Runt Weight is combined from Our Crazy Rat Adventure tracking of 15 different litters ****Several of the adult dwarf are overweight (15-50 grams) – after talking to many breeders apparently this is a common issue with them.

​Why all this information? Is it simply to talk about this amazing discovery in our mischief? No, it is to explain growth of babies and their hidden potential. A few breeders do not like their litters to be more than 6-8 in number, sometimes even smaller. Their theory is that it will be easier on the mama and their babies will be nice and FAT. To achieve this there are a few things they will do. If they have another nursing mom they may place a few with her. Otherwise, they may hard cull (kill) certain babies depending on size, eye colors or wait until a bit older for pigment to show before they hard cull those colors that they do not want to work with. Often the breeders that do this are multipurpose breeders as well, called Feeder Breeders. They breed to feed animals for other owners and their own pets. Though I can't imagine doing this personally, I accept that other animals need to eat. Unfortunately, some breeders that do not have to feed other animals, will still hard cull down their littler size simply because they think it is the only way to get fat healthy baby rats. I have chosen not to do this, after years of tracking their weights, I feel confident that our females have done a fabulous job with their litters no matter what size. Mama's should always keep their weight without struggles and bouncing back to post pregnancy weight by weaning is an important goal I have for all of the mama's. Over the years, there have been a few times I have had to increase fat offered in hopes to help with dryer skin in the babies. Another time, we did need to give mama a bit extra from the beginning – she had 18 babies! Over the years a baby has passed in the first few days and only a few times have we lost one after the first week. It is a very difficult choice to have babies euthanized. One had an umbilical hernia that did not get better and another that had a skull injury. Both of those became FTT due to their injuries. We also lost on baby to megacolon (in a line I immediately took out of my program). After several years of breeding and tracking weights weekly, I have shown that the babies of larger litters (up to 18) have all gained and are around the same size as those of litters that are as small as 2. In fact, some of my smallest babies were from a litter of 2. Their genetics were simply for a more petite rat. Thankfully we allow our litters to develop naturally, if we didn’t, we may never had known about our Burmese or the Dwarf Boys.

Below are a few interesting things I have found online about overweight babies and basic litter size. (Warning some of the scientific studies can get graphic in their descriptions of their testing and how they cull) Often in scientific studies they will want to have same numbers of offspring and equal sex ratio to help them get to the outcomes for their studies. As a pet breeder I do not see the necessity to do this. Though I love a squishy fat baby, I do not want to simply focus on having equal sized litters to have the fat babies but rather overall healthy babies thinking of the long term health of the rat.

Many of you have asked if we will be selling our fun toys, hammocks and other rat goodies at the 2017 Fall Show. For this show I wanted to volunteer where needed and with daughters now working and into horses, looks like I will not have anyone to run the table. However, I can promise you there will be tons of other great rat goodies there along with some rescues for adoption.

Rats make such a big impact in such a short time. Think about it. 3 years to us is just 1 month to a rattie. Make the most of your time with yours. Do not leave them in their cage all the time. Play and snuggle. 1 day to you is a months worth of love to them <3

This is such a touchy subject for so many. When is it time? There are a lot of resources out there to give you information on when quality of life is harder on our pets than allowing them to cross the rainbow bridge. Here is one I have seen shared on many of the rat groups I follow on facebook - Quality of Life Scale. Here is one more - Quality of Life Questionnaire. Often we have to make a hard decision for our furbabies. Do we allow them to continue to suffer or do we choose to euthanize? We have had to make this decision more times than I ever thought I would. That is what happens when you have 42 rats plus many babies over the years. It does not get easier over time. Here is a letter written by Veterinarian Anthony A Pilny - When it comes to euthanasia, the hardest part is deciding when.

Some vets will offer to euthanize an ill rat but the cost may be prohibitive to some. We have found out that the local humane society offers several options which include receiving either their body or ashes for home burial. When I called them a few weeks ago to find out their prices The Oregon Humane Society charges $5.00 for euthanasia of a rat and will give you their body to bury at home. The will charge $25 for you to receive their ashes back with options in between for them to dispose of the body. For some this may be a cheaper option than the vet. One thing you must ask is how they will do it? You have to make sure they do not do intracardiac (IC; in the heart) injection on a conscious rat. This is extremely painful for the rat and illegal in some states.

So often we do not know what to do with our beloved pets when they pass away. Many live in apartments or rent and do not have a resting place for their ratties once they crossed the rainbow bridge. Whether you choose to bury or have ashes to scatter there are a couple options I have heard a few do.

Bury them in the ground - when you have as many as we do we had to come up with an idea on how to put them in a smaller area. Here is a link to an idea we came up with - multiple burial

Bury them in a deep pot planting bulbs and ground cover or perennials that come back every year.

Cremate them and use same options above

Chose to allow the vet or humane society to dispose of the body

Since we have chosen to bury our beloved pets we have been looking for the right marker where they are buried. About a month ago we found a great site Hatchet Creek Pet Memorials that will actually engrave on a small marker. They have rat images (or any other pet you could imagine) to chose from or they can try to do a custom image from a photo you submit. We just received ours today. They were great to work with, sending us proofs and changing our little requests over 5 times. They were very patient and wanted to get it right for us. I highly recommend this company.